State police crime lab wipes out case backlog

BATON ROUGE (AP) — A backlog of cases and evidence waiting to be processed has been eliminated at the Louisiana State Police crime lab.

Gov. Bobby Jindal and Col. Mike Edmonson announced Tuesday that the lab is working on cases in "real time," rather than keeping evidence on the shelves for months waiting its turn for analysis.

Officials say the time to analyze evidence and wrap up the report for a case has dropped from as much as 1,000 days to fewer than 15 days. Jindal says the backlog of 9,300 cases awaiting review at the crime lab when he took office in 2008 is gone.

The state police lab accepts evidence for review from around the state, but the large majority of its cases are from the Baton Rouge area and surrounding parishes.